


don't leave

by mahariels



Series: all your bridges are burning [10]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 09:41:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10568676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahariels/pseuds/mahariels
Summary: rosa's always left. it's all she can do.





	

**I.**

Aaron isn’t verbal but that doesn’t mean Rosa doesn’t know exactly what he’s saying anyway.

“I’ll come back and visit,” she says, knowing it won’t be the same.

He looks at her levelly. Chin jutting, lips stiff. 

“I’m not _leaving_ ,” she says, knowing it’s a lie, “it’s not forever. I’ll be back during the summer break.”

Aaron says nothing, but jerks his hand away from hers.

Eventually, she packs for school. Aaron watches her from the window, but he turns away when she looks back.

**II.**

“So it looks like my unit’s going to be sent to the front in a few months,” Nate says, as they’re lying in bed together, fully clothed, just laying there to be close. It’s not easy, sneaking around to see each other, but it’s mostly worth it.

Rosa doesn’t know what to say, so instead she says, “Are you ready?”

“Am I _ready_? No, damn it. Of course not. I don’t want to leave you.”

“We always knew that would happen when we started seeing each other,” Rosa says, although there’s something about the way he’s looking at her that’s making her feel _strange_ , like anything could happen, anything at all. Some small miracle in a world entirely devoid of them.

“We did,” Nate agrees, and looks away. He takes her hands in his. “But now that it’s happening, I’m… I find that I don’t… What I’m trying to say, Rosa, is that you mean an awful lot to--I mean, you know I love you, Rosa, _Captain_ Fisher--”

“We should get married,” Rosa says, before she can even think about it, before she can regret it.

“ _What_?”

“We should get married,” she says, again, and it sounds better the second time she says it. More assured. Like it’s not the craziest thing she’s ever said, or the stupidest fight she couldn’t win that she ever started.

“Are you _proposing_?”

“For fuck’s sake, Nate, do you want me to get down on one knee?”

“I dunno,” he says, grinning like an absolute loon. “Might be nice. No one’s ever asked me to marry ‘em before, and I’m a real lady and should be respected as such. You could get down on one knee, tell me how much you l--”

She slaps him hard on the shoulder and that devolves into wrestling which devolves into something else entirely. It’s not until later when they’re both sprawled exhausted, naked, and sweaty on the bed that Nate says, “Yes.”

**III.**

“I’m not even going to bother telling you not to fuck--not to _leave,_ because you won’t listen to me, will you?”

“You know I have to do this,” Rosa says, running her hand down his arm. They’re standing in the lee of the gigantic particle transmitter she and Sturges built, and she’s not sure whether the goosebumps raised on her arms are from touching him or from the electricity sparking between the metal arches.

“I know,” Mac says. “But that doesn’t mean I have to fucking like it.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve lived through worse.”

“If you die, I swear to god, I’ll find you and kill you myself.”

She realizes, right at that moment, that she loves him, all bullshitting herself aside. It’s a simple realization and it fucking _hurts_. She doesn’t like to make promises she can’t keep. Not anymore. Not now. But she says, “I’ll come back, safe and sound. I promise you, Mac.”

“That’ll have to be good enough, huh?” His laugh’s ragged and it sounds like it hurts him. She feels it in her own ribs like a knife, her fingers gripping his arms.

“I _promise_.”

**IV.**

Six months later, she bursts through the door of Shaun’s quarters, her face stained with blood and smoke and Preston and Mac and the Minutemen at her back. The alarms are screaming warnings. Instructions. She had given orders to evacuate the civilians but some of them can’t--or won’t--leave. She killed them like the rest. She’s starting to get tired of killing. Of this relentless drive.

Her son is there.

He’s lying in the bed, a shell of himself, smelling of sickness and antiseptic, so strongly she can catch it even over the smoke. Her son--this old man with Nate’s nose and her eyes--looks up at her, and for the first time, she sees that he’s tearing up.

“Mother,” he says, and for a moment, she can almost hear a sob in his voice. “Mother, don’t leave me.”

Shaun. Sh’muel. The child Nate had had such hopes for, the child she had been terrified to bring into the world. A selfish old man who caused so much fucking _suffering_. A boy who should have been raised with knowledge of _tikkun olam_. They’re both monsters, but she knows it. Shaun--her son--has never admitted it. 

But he’s her blood, whatever the hell that means. And he’s scared. And he’s dying. 

She steps forward, because she keeps moving, no matter what. “I won’t, Shaun. I won’t.”

He clutches her hand with his spindly fingers, the skin old and papery. “Thank you, Mother. Thank you…”

With her other hand, she unholsters her sidearm. With all of her resolve, she whips the gun up and fires one shot before he realizes what’s happening. With a gasp he falls back against the pillow. Blood spreads slowly beneath his head.

Rosa holsters the .45 again, and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t look over her shoulder at Preston or Mac. She’s not sure whether pity or judgment would hurt worst.

“Let’s go,” Rosa says, and they follow.

**V.**

She disappears for a while after that. Doesn’t leave instructions or a forwarding address. There’s shit she’s got to work out herself, mourning she needs to manage. Or would manage, if she could feel _anything._ She doesn’t get to bury Shaun like she buried Nate, but that’s okay. Shaun was her son, but he wasn’t. Shaun was everything wrong with the world she’s woken up to.

Part of her considered ending her own life. It would be easy, out here, without anyone to stop her. The entirety of her purpose in the Commonwealth, the thing that kept her moving and _alive,_ is finished. Nate’s avenged. The Institute can’t destroy anyone else’s life now, and her own rage is--not gone, but muted.

But she doesn’t. Something keeps her hanging on, although to be honest, with the state she’s in these days it’s pretty fucking close. The little cabin stinks, _she_ stinks, she’s definitely not doing a great job at remembering to eat, and for the moment, that’s all right with her. She doesn’t have to do anything except lay there. No one asks her for help. She’s not responsible for anyone or anything. All she has to do is exist, and technically, she doesn’t even really have to do _that._

She’s been out in the woods for a week or two when Mac shows up, forced casual because she knows he’s probably been _flipping out_  for the whole time. The part of her that’s not completely numb is very sorry about it. The part of her that’s not completely numb is embarrassed at the state he’s found her in. He looks like hell, too, his beard longer and more unkempt than she’s seen it in a long time, dark shadows under his eyes.

“Boss--Rosa,” he says, and takes her hands. Pulls her to her feet. She can see him swallow, hard.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and means it.

“Fucking hell, what for? This is--you’ve been through some shit.”

“I…”

“Shit, Boss. Look. You don’t need to say anything. You don’t even need to come back to Sanctuary with me, not if you don’t want to. But I’m gonna just stay here with you for now, all right?”

Something in her breaks, and though she doesn’t cry, she thinks if she were a different sort of person she might be crying now. The weight of the last two years is crushing. “Why don’t you just _leave_? I’m--I can’t--”

He looks at her like she’s completely fucking nuts, which she probably is. “Because I love you and I’m not gonna let you just waste away in fucking Henry Thoreau’s goddamn cabin, okay? That’s a fucking insult to transcendentalism, not to mention a goddamn tragedy.”

It’s so stupidly Mac and she’s so overwhelmed with months of shit she hasn’t dealt with yet that she throws her arms around his shoulders and she’s not sure whether she’s laughing or crying or both. It doesn’t really matter. “I’m not leaving, Mac.”


End file.
